Soundtrack Review: Call Of Duty Black Ops II (2012)

Call Of Duty Black Ops II Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the video game score Call Of Duty Black Ops II by Jack Wall.

“Half of it feels like a generic score that doesn’t do anything for me.”

Call Of Duty: Black Ops II is first-person shooter video game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It was releases on November 13, 2012 for Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. Black Ops II is the ninth game in the Call of Duty series of video games and a sequel to the 2010 game Call Of Duty: Black Ops. You continue to play as Alex Mason, but this time you follow two storylines. One set in the 70s and 80s and the other one in 2025. The score is composed by Jack Wall, while the main theme is composed by Trent Reznor.

Track List

1. Theme From Call of Duty Black Ops II (by Trent Reznor)	80
2. Alex and David	60
3. Savimbis Pride	60
4. You Cant Kill Me	60
5. Hidden	40
6. Catch Me if You Can	60
7. Flying Squirrels	60
8. Future Wars	60
9. Rare Earth Elements	60
10. Desert Ride	60
11. Sand and Camels	80
12. Suicide Ride/Kravchenko Interrogation/Anvil Again	60
13. Afganistan 2025	100
14. The Search for Josefina	60
16. Rivers and Rain	60
17. Searchlights	60
18. Anthem	60
19. Anthem (Tuey Remix) (by Jack Wall & Brian Tuey)	60
20. Escape From Anthem	80
21. Pakistan Run (by Brian Tuey)	80
22. Shadows (Outer Club Solar) (by Brian Tuey)	80
23. Spider Bot	60
24. Colossus	80
25. DeFalcos Theme	60
27. Dockside	80
28. Go Home Gringos	60
29. The Invasion of Panama	80
30. Nexus Target	60
31. Panic Attack/P.T.S.D.	60
32. Cordis Die	80
33. Farid	60
34. Mason Enters/Yemenite Fight	60
35. War Machine	80
36. Guerra Precioso	60
37. Chasing a Ghost	80
38. On Deck	80
39. Prom Night	80
40. Dark Skies	80
41. Sniper on the 110	100
42. Streetcar Named Fire	80
43. Escort	80
44. Dogfight	80
45. Adrenaline	100
46. Judgement Day	60
47. Heros Theme	80
49. Theme From Call of Duty Black OpsII (Orchestral Mix)	80

The hype on this score is rather ridiculous. Trent Reznor, yeah you know who that is, is writing the main theme for the game and suddenly it feels like it’s the event of the year. Well it isn’t, not to me. To be fair, the main theme is decent, and one of the better cues on the score, but it didn’t live up to the “hype”. Jack Wall however, I expect great things from as always, however I feel he under delivers on this score, specially the first half. It gets better in the second half though.

The problem I have with this score as a whole is that it feels too generic. There’s not much that doesn’t just feel like a skippable cue and that’s a huge disappointment to me. There are some really great cues though like ‘Afganistan 2025′ which is a very tense and frantic action cue. ‘Sniper On The 110′ has an awesome sound to it and you can immediately see the scene in your mind. ‘Adrenaline’ is the same and like the cue title says, it’s a kick from start to finish.

Conclusion

This score is far from perfect. Half of it feels like a generic score that doesn’t do anything for me and I expect a lot more from Jack Wall. It manages to save itself due to some decent cues in the second half in particular, but I expected a lot more.

GEEK SCORE: 70.4